


Penitence

by pockettreatpete



Series: Manchester, NH [2]
Category: Political RPF - US 21st c.
Genre: Angry Sex, Angst, M/M, Mild D/s, Past Infidelity, People need to talk more than this before they do that kind of stuff, This is not super healthy, seriously
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-14
Updated: 2019-09-14
Packaged: 2020-10-18 02:26:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20631563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pockettreatpete/pseuds/pockettreatpete
Summary: Pete tells Chasten what he's done. It doesn't go great.





	Penitence

**Author's Note:**

> Let the record reflect I want Pete and Chasten to be soft and adorable and newlywed and deeply in love forever and I hope they are. But this is where this story has taken us now. Because I’m depraved and my friends are dirty enablers. I desperately hope Chasten never ever lays eyes on this thing, and if you do, Chasten, please know I’m really really fucking sorry. 
> 
> Dedicated to someone who will NOT want to be identified as having had this fic dedicated to them, so just know there’s someone out there that this is very specifically for, and without whom it would not exist. Blame them too, not just me.

“So just to recap, we’re meeting Pete and the team in Nashua and then we have a stop in Concord and meeting Pete again in Manchester for the fundraiser,” Emily finished.

“That’s great. Thanks, Emily.”

Chasten smiled out at the landscapes bathed in late summer sun. Three days at home had done him a world of good. He’d slept, actual long full nights, cuddled the dogs and spent time with his friends. He was energized to get back out, if only for two days, and ready to take Peter home with him after. It’d been a week since they’d been in the same place overnight and he was ready to fall asleep next to someone without a tail for a couple of nights.

They got to the site in Nashua first, and Chasten spotted Peter across the parking lot. His husband was smiling, but when they got closer Chasten could see the shadows under Peter’s eyes. He hadn’t slept. Chasten hugged Peter tightly.

“Are you okay,” he whispered near Peter’s ear.

“Talk tonight,” Peter murmured back as he pulled out of the hug and took Chasten’s hand. A knot settled in Chasten’s stomach, but they were already heading in to the event so he put on a smile and tried to put it out of his mind.

//

Chasten felt like their meeting in the parking lot in Nashua had been about four days ago by the time the hotel room door closed behind him in Manchester that night. Peter dropped his phone and the room key on the table, and sat heavily on the edge of the bed. Chasten stayed by the table, studying him. He looked a lot worse for wear, drawn and pale. His hands were fidgeting. Chasten was getting nervous.

“You want to tell me what’s going on, babe?”

Peter looked at the floor, biting his lower lip, and Chasten died a little waiting for his husband to drop whatever horrible news he was chewing over.

“I slept with someone,” he said finally.

“You what,” Chasten heard himself say from somewhere far away.

“I slept with someone,” Peter repeated.

At least, that’s what it looked like he was saying. Chasten suddenly couldn’t really hear over the roaring in his ears. He reached out to steady himself against a chair.

“What…” He trailed off, because what the fuck was he supposed to say to that? Jesus. “Who?”

“Beto.”

He couldn’t quite breathe, but the shock still wrung an involuntary bark of laughter out of Chasten.

“Beto O’Rourke?”

“We met downstairs and had a drink, and. I don’t know. I don’t know really how it happened but it did. I have no excuse.”

Peter looked up at him. It was obvious he was in pain, it shone from his red-rimmed eyes, but Chasten couldn’t take it in. He felt light-headed and tried to focus on his breaths.

“You cheated on me,” he said helplessly.

Peter’s eyes dropped back to a spot on the carpet.

“I’m so sorry, Chasten.”

He couldn’t breathe he couldn’t breathe he had to get out of there. He grabbed the key card from the table and ran out.

//

In the parking lot there was at least air. It was about half-full with cars but for the moment completely deserted. Chasten walked along the tree-lined edge until he was as far away from the hotel as he could get without leaving the lot. Leaning against one of the trees, he allowed himself to think about what had just happened. The pain was pressing and acute and unwieldy, and he had to just breathe with it for several long minutes.

He should be better at this, he should be used to it. He _had_ been used to it, but that was so long ago it might as well have been a different life. Peter had always been different, he’d been _safe_. He blew a frustrated breath and rested his head back against the tree as the tears he’d been holding back started leaking out. Stupid. Stupid thinking he was out of the woods, believing Peter wouldn’t let him down. Stupid having married Peter thinking he would never be made to feel like this again. Stupid saying yes to an exhausting campaign with tons of unaccompanied nights in bland hotel rooms. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

He wasn’t sure how long he stood crying, but eventually the tears ran out, and he started to feel...desensitized. Numb. He dried his cheeks. As he crossed the lobby he wondered fleetingly what the receptionist made of his blotched mess of a face.

Peter was sitting in the exact same position he’d been in when Chasten left, on the edge of the bed, leaning forward heavily with his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped. He looked up at Chasten when he came in, but didn’t speak. Chasten picked up his phone. 11:35. So he’d been outside for almost an hour, and Peter hadn’t moved. He didn’t feel any sympathy. He didn’t.

“Tell me what happened.”

Peter blinked.

“Babe…”

“Don’t call me ‘babe’ right now. Tell me what happened. All of it.”

Peter’s voice started off wobbly, uncertain, and fell into a monotone as he recounted the events of the past two nights. Chasten stayed standing and tried not to let his face betray everything he felt as his husband told him how, particularly, he’d cheated on him.

“And then I fucked him, and then I left,” Peter finished, and Chasten felt sick. He took deep breaths until he felt marginally more certain he wasn’t about to hurl right there.

“I’m going to bed. You should too because you look like shit.”

“Yeah.”

They went through their bedtime routines in silence, and for the first time in four years Chasten didn’t lean over for a goodnight kiss. It took him forever to get to sleep.

//

The next morning he had a few blissful bleary moments before the previous night hit him. _Fuck_. He got up and got dressed, painfully aware that Peter’s gaze was following him around the room from the table where he was supposedly working. It irked him, but he wasn’t sure how to put it into words, so he tried to ignore it. He didn’t look at Peter when he sat down to eat, but he didn’t have to see him to know he was getting the best of the sad puppy dog eyes. He put his phone by his plate and demonstratively pulled up his Instagram feed. They ate in silence.

“We should get ready to go,” Peter said, just as there was a knock on the door. That’d be Saralena.

“Look,” Chasten said flatly as he put on his jacket. It felt like heavy lifting to say anything at all. “We have work to do. We need to talk and we will, but a hotel room in New Hampshire is not the place to do it. We’ll talk when we get home tomorrow. Until then, we act like normal.”

He couldn’t interpret the look Peter gave him, which felt unsettling. He thought he knew every look in the Buttigieg repertoire – but then he’d thought he knew everything about Peter period, and clearly there were unexplored depths.

“Okay.”

//

He was exhausted by the time the car dropped them off at the house the next afternoon. Faking normalcy was back-breaking work. He’d felt disconnected and numb most of the previous day, but after another mostly sleepless night with plenty of time to turn it all over in his mind, he was feeling increasingly angry. After thanking the dog-sitter they were finally at home and alone. This would be when they talked. He’d give anything in the world not to have to talk right now. Like magic, Peter’s phone rang.

“Hi, Laura. No, we just got in.” Peter paused, frowning. “It’s not really a good time for--” Chasten caught his eye and mouthed _it’s fine_. Peter raised his eyebrows in a _really?_ gesture, and Chasten nodded decisively. Stay of execution sounded good right then. “Okay, yeah, I’ll come in. Be there in twenty minutes. Can we order some food to the office? I’m starving.”

“I’m sorry,” he said as he hung up the phone.

“Do the work,” Chasten said, picking up his phone to order himself dinner.

“Will you be here when I get back?”

Peter’s voice was small, suddenly, and Chasten looked up. Peter looked genuinely worried. Good.

“Yes,” he said. “I’ll be here.”

//

He’d eaten, changed the sheets, taken a nap and done two loads of laundry by the time Peter came back from the office, and was busying himself folding it and putting it away.

“Hey,” Peter offered quietly as he walked into the bedroom and hung up his suit jacket. Chasten didn’t look at him.

“Hi.”

He put away the last bundle of socks, and went to leave the room when Peter spoke again.

“Please, Chasten, can we talk?”

Chasten stopped in his tracks. Two more steps, he’d be out the door and he could avoid this conversation, and his philandering fucking husband, for a while longer. On the other hand, maybe they should just get this out of the way.

“Okay.” He turned around. “Talk.”

Peter swallowed.

“Chasten, I’m sorry. For cheating on you, for violating your trust. What I did was unforgivable. The only thing I want right now is for us to get through this. I know it will take time, if it’s even possible at all. I want you to know that I am prepared to do anything that you would find helpful to alleviate your pain and hopefully start rebuilding.”

It was such a perfectly calm and composed and eminently _correct_ thing to say that it made Chasten want to punch Peter in the face. He wanted to scream and throw things, anything to provoke a reaction from his husband. Something visceral, something _real_. He knew Peter was feeling it, but he wasn’t quite capable of letting it surface, even now, and it pissed Chasten off.

“Anything? What, like drop out of the race?”

Peter didn’t flinch. He nodded towards his jacket.

“Give me the phone, I’ll call Mike right now. The whole thing can be boarded up in a week.”

Chasten was aghast. _This fucking guy._

“What the hell are you talking about? There are literally hundreds of people out there that have uprooted, _upended_, their whole lives for this, for us, for you! And you want to just throw it away?”

“I don’t--”

“No, listen to me, because that’s _fucking_ grotesque, Peter. People have moved their families to South Bend, to Iowa, to South Carolina. People have donated millions of dollars. I. Quit. My. Job. All for this project, all to make you president. Because we fucking believe in you. And you risked all of it for a piece of ass!”

Chasten heard his voice starting to break and realized that if he stopped talking he’d probably cry so he pressed on.

“And you’ve put me in this impossible situation. I have no recourse here, Peter. None. If I take off to spend a week at my parents’, people are going to ask why I skipped the events in Miami, why I’m not there for the debate. If I step back, start working again, then the narrative will be that the campaign is winding down. Not to mention, I move out of this house right now, your campaign is over. I’m trapped. And I fucking hate you for that.”

“I understand,” Peter said, and Chasten felt something inside him explode. He reached out blindly and pushed, his hands crashing into Peter’s chest.

“You understand? _You understand_, you fucking asshole?”

Peter slammed gracelessly into the wall with a surprised shout, and a twisted, sour heat spread in Chasten’s stomach. He walked closer, crowding Peter and trapping him against the wall. For a second he wasn’t sure what to do, what he wanted, but Peter looked at him with hooded eyes and fuck, he just wanted something, a fucking _reaction. _

The kiss definitely wasn’t pretty, all teeth and aggression, but Peter responded like he hadn’t been kissed in years. His hands came up to rest on Chasten’s shoulders, and Chasten couldn’t help flinching out of the kiss. He grabbed Peter’s wrists and pinned them to the wall over his head, crossing them so he could hold them both in place with one hand. Peter inhaled sharply, but didn’t fight back. He opened his mouth easily when Chasten kissed him again, letting himself be ravished. Chasten bit down on Peter’s lip and reveled in the answering moan.

When he pulled back to take a breath, Peter tried to say something, but Chasten grabbed his chin to stop him.

“You don’t get to talk right now,” he said, kissing him again, pressing him hard against the wall.

He was vaguely aware that he was acting like a total asshole, and he knew he shouldn’t do this. He was taking way too much pleasure in the pained sounds Peter was making when Chasten was too rough with his teeth or pinched Peter’s wrists too tightly, he was getting too viciously excited by having Peter incapacitated under him. That’s not how this was supposed to work.

He couldn’t help himself. It’d been weeks since they’d had sex for real, and his body was raring to go, even as his mind was spinning. His body didn’t really care that much that he was pissed as hell. It felt like he could work out some aggression this way, actually, which again, he reminded himself, was _not fucking healthy_. Shutting his brain up, he pushed his thigh in between Peter’s, which spread for him immediately. Peter moaned loudly when Chasten’s hip made contact with his groin, and ground up against Chasten.

He wrenched loose from the kiss but kept a firm grasp on Peter’s chin. He waited for Peter to open his eyes and make eye contact. He needed to make sure this message was received clearly.

“If we do this right now, it’s going to hurt. Do you want it? Tell me yes or no.”

“Yes.”

Chasten knew he should press him on that, because there were all kinds of consent issues going on here, but he’d said yes and that would have to be good enough because Chasten was going fucking crazy. He pushed in for another kiss, before letting go. He pulled up Peter’s shirt and began unbuttoning it. Peter let his hands fall to his sides and his head fall forward slightly. A bolt of fresh anger hit Chasten.

“Hey,” he said, too sharply. “Help.”

Peter’s eyes shot open, and his fingers flew to his belt buckle and got to work. Chasten left him to it and got the bed ready. He moved slowly, pointedly not looking at Peter until everything was set up the way he wanted it. When he looked over, he forgot how to breathe for like two seconds. Peter had undressed and stood still in the same spot, head down, eyes toward the floor. The only way he could look more perfectly submissive, more perfectly _penitent_ was if he was kneeling. An absolutely insane part of Chasten's brain insisted he could make Peter kneel, and crawl to the bed, and the idea made his insides twist.

“Come here.”

Peter stopped a couple of feet away and looked up slowly to meet Chasten’s eyes. He was breathing hard, his lips were red and swollen, his eyes were… Chasten looked away.

“Hands and knees.”

Peter breathed in sharply and did as he was told. Any other time Chasten would have taken time to admire the curve of Peter’s back, his toned legs, let his fingers glide along Peter’s side and ruffle his hair. He didn’t do any of that, picking up the lube instead.  
He pressed a finger inside, slowly but without stopping. Peter groaned, but took it, so he didn’t wait long to add a second. Chasten wasn’t honestly sure he cared about hurting Peter, but he didn’t want to injure him, so he didn’t rush it as much as he might have wanted. He slicked his cock methodically, dried his hand on the towel and lined himself up.

He pushed inside all at once, too quickly and too forceful. It felt fucking spectacular. Peter gave a strangled cry, hanging his head, breathing shallowly against the pain. Chasten wanted to not care, wanted to be as casual with Peter’s physical pain as Peter had been with Chasten’s feelings, but he _did_ care. Fuck.

“Yes or no, Peter,” he said, hoping Peter understood.

“Yes,” Peter hissed.

Chasten grit his teeth and started thrusting, slowly. He could tell Peter was in pain, his whole body holding tension, but he’d said yes and he held still, letting Chasten have his way with him. Chasten gripped Peter’s hips tightly and picked up the pace. Peter groaned deeply.

It felt way too good doing it, considering he was probably hurting Peter with every movement. He pushed at Peter’s thighs, spreading them to get a better angle, and when he pressed in again, Peter’s head shot up and he groaned loudly, shoving his hips helplessly back against Chasten. He tried pacing himself, but it was hard, because Peter was making himself heard, moaning and whimpering. Peter’s sex noises had pretty much been the biggest turn-on of Chasten’s life since the first time he touched Peter’s dick and he moaned so desperately that Chasten had to deeply discipline himself not to take him right there.

Then Peter made it easy. He moved his hand in the direction of his cock, and Chasten had no problem stopping cold to slap his hand away.

“That’s not for you,” he said, trying to calm his breathing to sound more commanding.

Peter put his hand back on the mattress, but Chasten wasn’t happy. He grabbed Peter’s shoulder and pulled him up so he was straddling Chasten’s lap, his back against Chasten’s chest. He wrapped one of his arms around Peter, trapping his arms against his sides, and reached up with the other to press just hard enough at the base of Peter’s throat. He wanted to push harder, choke him a little, but he knew he couldn’t risk bruises where someone might see. He pressed the pad of his thumb against the hollow at the base of Peter’s throat and smiled when he heard Peter struggle for breath.

“Do you think this is for you,” he whispered in Peter’s ear. “Do you think you get to decide what happens here?”

Peter didn’t answer, and Chasten pressed just a little harder on his throat before letting go.

“No,” Peter gasped.

“No what, Peter?”

“No, I don’t get to decide what happens here.”

“And is that okay with you--” Chasten let his free hand settle on one of Peter’s nipples, caressing gently before grabbing hold and twisting cruelly, enjoying the cry it spawned. “-- Peter?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?” He twisted again, harder.

“Yes!” Peter shouted.

Chasten reared up, but he couldn’t get purchase against anything and he only managed to thrust shallowly into Peter, who whined frustratedly. Chasten pushed forward with his whole body until Peter was flat on his stomach – prostrate – under Chasten. He spread his legs wide, inviting Chasten deeper. Chasten experimented a bit with his positions until he found the spot that made Peter go taut and then limp, every time.

Peter was burrowing his face in the pillow, muting his responses. Chasten did really only mean to reach forward and turn his head, but he grabbed on instead to Peter’s hair, pulling it and lifting his head.

“Yes or no, Peter?”

“Yes,” Peter said in a sob.

“I want to hear you, don’t hide.”

He let go of Peter’s hair, and Peter let his head fall forward but facing sideways this time. His breaths were coming in deep gulps.

“Please.”

Chasten thrust again, harder, before answering. “Please what?”

“Please let me touch myself,” Peter mumbled.

Chasten almost laughed at the sheer gall of his husband. “No. If you’re coming tonight it’s like this.”

“I can’t,” Peter wailed. “I can’t, I can’t.”

“Well,” Chasten said, pausing to breathe, “I. Don’t. Care.” He punctuated each word with a sharp thrust of his hips, making Pete cry out.

He was sweating and his thighs were burning from exertion, but Peter was moaning his name in between sobbing breaths and he couldn’t stop even if he tried. He was right on the cusp when suddenly, Peter tensed and cried out. The sudden tightness around Chasten forced his orgasm out of him with an intensity he hadn’t quite expected. He fell forward, catching himself with his hands on either side of Peter. He breathed for a while before pulling out slowly and flopping over to sit down on the bed.

It took about thirty seconds for reality to hit him like a freight train. He was very much not in the right frame of mind to be giving aftercare, but Peter was fucking sobbing next to him, his whole body shaking with it. Fuck, fuck, fuck. This had been a really bad idea. He couldn't leave Peter like this, no matter how much he might want to.

He sat down next to Peter and laid a hand on his back, stroking carefully. Slowly, the sobbing quieted and Peter's breaths evened out. The wait was kind of meditative, actually. Chasten felt himself calming a little too, so it wasn’t as hard as he thought it might be to keep his voice gentle:

"I'm going to get you cleaned up, okay?"

Peter nodded into the pillow. He didn't move while Chasten got a cloth and cleaned him, except to dutifully roll over when Chasten tapped his hip lightly. He kept his eyes closed and turned his face away.

"Peter, look at me."

His cheeks were swollen and blotched from crying, and his eyes, watery and red-rimmed, didn’t seem to focus properly. He looked dazed and far away.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah," Peter said hoarsely as Chasten pulled the covers over him. He blinked a couple of times, and looked like he was working hard to focus. "Are you?"

Chasten considered the question. He had to be honest, even though Peter was hardly in a state to take it in.

"No. Not yet."

Peter nodded, like he’d expected that response.

“I'm going to sleep in the guestroom for a little while."

Peter nodded again.

"Go to sleep, P."

"I love you," Peter said quietly.

"I know," Chasten replied. He turned out the light and left.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay so I'm on twitter now @pockettreatpete if you want to give me a follow I'll definitely talk about Pete in extremely inappropriate ways


End file.
